It is the first scripted television series to air on the network.Both the show's first and second episodes aired back-to-back on its premiere night. Variety has recognized The Haves and the Have Nots as "OWN's most popular series to date." In addition, the drama series has been acclaimed as being "one of OWN's biggest success stories with its weekly dose of soapy fun, filled with the typical betrayals, affairs, manipulations, and a bitch slap or two." The series set ratings record for OWN, scoring the highest ratings ever for a series premiere and the highest overall ratings in the network's history. To date, the series is still OWN's highest rated broadcast.All of the main characters in the program have proven to be devious, immoral, vile, or at least nasty in their behaviors at one point or another, if not regularly.The show's cast is multiracial: one of the upper class families are Caucasian American and the other is African American; the poor family is also African American; in addition to this, there is a poor maid who's Hispanic.As an example, she once secretly revealed to Hanna that she only remains married to Jim as part of one big passive-aggressive scheme to make his life more miserable.She well understands that her family and she herself keep a lot of secrets from each other, largely due to their very public position in high society. This is despite Katheryn discovering that Hanna's daughter is Candace, a fact that Hanna herself revealed to Katheryn.Although they're moves that are devoid of all scruples, he has typically only used them as scare tactics unless gravely offended by an act.

Each of the three families experience similarly overwhelming hardships and plights.2) The other is Veronica, although Katheryn has detected other seedy sides to Veronica and thus doesn't consider her the closest friend.